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[x-post] DC has never been more based (RIP Rachel Pollack, you absolute legend) (lemmy.zip)
submitted 7 months ago by to c/transmemes@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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[–] [S] 10 points 7 months ago (6 children)

I don't think it's quite that bad, it can be a useful word to distinguish people who medically transition from those who don't, but I do get the ick when cis people use it as an umbrella word, or when trans people use the term as some kind of gold star in some respectability politics game, as if their transness is somehow more valid because they're a transsexual

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  • [–] 6 points 7 months ago (5 children)

    Oh, I was under the impression that it was an old-fashioned term that wasn't considered appropriate any more.

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  • [–] 7 points 7 months ago (3 children)

    It was for a while, but there does seem to be an effort to reclaim it recently.

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  • [–] [S] 8 points 7 months ago (2 children)

    there are also some older trans folks who use language like that just because they aren't "politically aware" or tuned into contemporary queer culture

    I think older cis people sometimes use the term for similar reasons.

    But yeah, I don't have strong hopes for the term getting reclaimed, but it would be nice to finally have both an umbrella term ("trans" or "transgender") that doesn't just narrowly mean people who both socially & medically transition, and to have a neutral term for people who do happen to socially & medically transition.

    Sometimes I just bite the bullet and use the longer phrase "trans person who medically transitioned" - it's just unwieldy language, but in general audiences it's probably best to do that to avoid upsetting someone.

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  • [–] 3 points 7 months ago (1 child)

    I know most social convention is interpersonal and not objective in any real way but it's still so surreal to hear people refer to it as an older term when we were still using and teaching it as terminology at my college's Queer Student Union about 10 years ago; like, hardly ancient.

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  • [–] [S] 2 points 7 months ago

    yeah, it's not that old - it's more like a term that became taboo as queer activism attempted to develop more inclusive language, starting with transgender which was meant to extend beyond transsexuals to include cross-dressers, drag performers, etc. ... unfortunately people just started using "transgender" to mean "transsexual", so then there was "trans*" as the new umbrella term, and then finally "trans".

    Every step along the way I think what happens is that the umbrella term just becomes the new way to refer to the default, mainstream conception of a trans person, which is basically a transsexual - a person who socially and medically transitions from one binary sex to another binary sex.

    Probably what most made people abandon "transsexual" as a term was the way the term was adopted by truscum (trans people who don't believe in non-binary people and who gatekeep trans identity mostly through pseudo-science and junk science).

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  • [–] [S] 4 points 7 months ago

    I think it would be safest to assume that still; I'm a trans woman who sometimes identifies as a transsexual when I'm trying to be clear in my language or when I'm talking with someone who has shared understanding of what the term means between us.

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